Car of the Year – farce or fair?
Here are the 11 finalists in the Car of the Year.
The 2014 South African Car of the Year will be revealed at a gala banquet in Johannesburg on 18 March.
The 11 finalists were announced last year in October, and right from the onset it’s raised questions as to whether the selection process can be done with reasonable fairness.
At one end of the 11 vehicle line-up you have the Renault Duster AWD, a ‘cheap’ but very popular SUV, and at the other end the marvellous BMW M4, a sophisticated coupé with a huge price tag.
Can anybody, after smoking an M4 around a race track, go on to crawl around in a Duster and still be completely unbiased?
Maybe Pope Francis can, but he’s not on the judging panel.
Last year the Porsche Cayman won.
Yes, it’s a wonderful car and I will gladly donate both my kidneys to science and have a dialysis machine fitted behind the driver’s seat in order to own one, but SA’s drivers were not happy.
They voiced their frustration on social media where the main complaint was that the Cayman is not a car that the average man on the street can afford.
Joe Public wants to be able to buy the car of year, and if he can’t, the COTY competition becomes meaningless to him.
The Wesbank COTY competition was first held in 1986.
Back then the average car maker’s line-up consisted of a handful of sedans and maybe a hatch or two.
Since then things have changed dramatically within the motoring industry with Mercedes-Benz, for instance, offering over 16 different vehicles and over 100 derivatives.
It is then perhaps time the organisers rethink the COTY competition and bring it up to date.
The eleven car line-up looks like this:
• Audi A3 Sedan, 1.4T SE,
S Tronic
• BMW M4, Coupé Auto
• Citroën C4 Picasso E-HDI,
115 Intensive
• Honda Accord 3.5, V6 Exclusive
• Lexus ES 250, EX
• Mercedes-Benz C-Class,
C 200 Auto
• Nissan Qasqai 1.6DCI, Acenta Auto
• Porche Macan S Diesel
• Renault Duster 1.5DCI,
Dynamique 4WD
• Subaru WRX Premium
• Toyota Corolla 1.4,
D-4D Prestige
